Collaboration, Reflection, and Growth: My Journey in the Graduate Community of Practice

Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash

One of my biggest takeaways from the CCESL Community of Practice is the importance of collaboration. It was a common theme throughout our discussions and was also manifested in the format of our meetings. It is crucial to understand our limits and seek help from other professionals and the community we work with. Such relationships enrich our work and are more likely to produce meaningful outcomes for society. 

Another important realization is that community work requires extensive and diligent planning. I think in our discussions we have repeatedly mentioned how necessary it is to think about the end goal of your project at the beginning of it. Such strategic thinking would allow us to secure necessary funds from appropriate agencies and commit to providing tangible outputs for the community we serve. As academics, we often see a manuscript as an end goal, but it is essential to move beyond the academic signposts of success and give back to the communities we collaborate with. Reciprocity and mutual benefit are at the base of community-engaged research.

To add to that, it is also important to cocreate the research question with the community. They have a better understanding of their needs and sense the directions that would lead to informative outcomes. Good community-engaged work is the work that prioritizes the needs of the community.

Throughout the CCESL Community of Practice sessions, I appreciated most the opportunity to connect with other graduate students on campus. We are often limited to our academic units which, in my opinion, restricts creative collaborations among scholars. One of my favorite parts of the program has been learning about other participants’ work. Their experiences and unique approaches to their work are inspiring to my academic journey.

I am equally inspired to implement the principles of community engagement we learned about in my work. I hope that my research on emotion regulation will be useful to the communities that need it most.